Awakening
by metameric1
Summary: Emotionally distraught, Daria moves to her freshman dorm at Raft. Somehow, she must pick up the pieces and move on. Prequel to my earlier fic The Window. This is a one-shot. Complete.


_**Awakening**_

_A prequel to **The Window**_

_(Takes place after Daria's move to Raft. This is a work of fanfiction, and no money or anything of value has been exchanged. The characters are the property of MTV/Viacom or whomever currently holds the intellectual property rights to Daria._

_Rated M for coarse language._

"My God," came her sister's quiet voice. "You're gonna love it here. This place is beautiful." Quinn glanced from side to side, eyes wide.

"Yeah, there are lots of cute guys," smirked Daria. "With brains."

"Shut up, you. You can carry your stuff up to your dorm room yourself if you want."

Daria glanced at Quinn; as she thought, the corners of her oh-so-cute mouth were curved up slightly. "I hope Dad finds the parking lot okay, or Mom's gonna kill him. She's been in a kinda weird mood all day."

"Her eldest flew the coop. You're next," Daria smirked. "303. Here it is." Daria unlocked the door; her roommate hadn't arrived yet. "Tight. But at least we have a bathroom and not a communal facility down the hall."

"Still, you're away from Lawndale," Quinn said quietly, looking around. "I know I'll be there for at least my first couple of years of college. Gotta make up for all that time I wasted."

It took all of ten minutes to put the stuff they had brought away. Helen and Jake were on their way with a hand truck, laden down with Daria's new microwave and boxes of food, various supplies, and her printer.

"Daria…" Quinn fell quiet, gathering her thoughts and then pressing on carefully. "I hope you give people a chance to get to see who you really are. This isn't Lawndale, or Highland, thank God."

Daria said nothing. No sharp reply, not even a glare; she was looking out the window at the people hanging out in the quad below.

"It wasn't the right time, I guess; and if you guys had tried it any earlier it probably wouldn't have…" _Oh shit, when will I learn to shut the hell up? Daria can take care of herself._ "I guess I'm saying that you could…I mean…"

"It's okay, Sis. I think I know what you're trying to say. I'll live, and so will he. I can do without the pain, sure, but there are some things that I want to keep."

Quinn looked at her sister, arms wrapped around herself, watching the people down below. Couples holding hands, people hugging, the excitement of a new life…_Sis, what do I do? How can I help?_

"The thing I miss the most is being able to just _talk_ to him. He was one of my closest friends, and there are things that I can't talk about with Jane. You know, the brother-sister thing? I always had the two of them, and now, Jane's still back there until the next term, and I don't even want to call their house just in case Trent picks up."

"Jane doesn't have a cell?"

"Not yet. She's watching her money really carefully, but maybe next month…"

Quinn grinned_. That I can help with. I'll get her one of those no contract phones. It'll keep you guys in contact until she can swing one herself._

Daria turned away from the window, eyes now closed tight, face downcast.

_Oh God, Daria, please don't cry! You're the strong one, don't forget that._

Without thinking it through, Quinn stepped over and gave her sister a hug. She felt Daria tense, and to Quinn's surprise, she relaxed just a bit and began to hug her back.

"Sis, I'm not gonna pretend that I know what you're going through. But you can call me anytime, you know. I'd like that. I'm gonna miss you, you…you…brain."

"If you need any help with your schoolwork, you know I'll be there for you," Daria smirked. "I even left you one of my green jackets in the back of your closet. You know, I think you'll have a great senior year, if your grades keep trending the way they did. I know you're a lot smarter than you let on."

"Thanks, Sis. I'll take you up on that. Will you proofread my stuff before I turn it in?"

"Sure. You might email your assignments to me, so I can make suggestions. If you want, I mean."

Quinn gave her sister a smile. "You and I are gonna be alright, Daria. We'll never screw things up as badly as Mom and her sisters did."

* * *

><p>Daria glanced over at her roommate Carla's sleeping form, on her side, facing the wall.<p>

The thin metal slats of the window blinds were icy cold, and her breath fogged the view of the campus outside, cold and blue and still as death at three in the morning.

She replayed the last conversation she had with Jane in her head.

_I don't need to get laid. I need to make love with a guy that cares about me as much as I do for him._

_You still feel that way about him?_

_It's different. Like betrayal. _

_He didn't cheat on you._

_He wanted his own life_.

_That's not fair. You want your own life too. _

_I still remember what it was like the first time. I don't think I'm ever going to forget. I was so scared, and I think he was too._

_He was. He was so afraid of screwing everything up, and he did it anyway. It was wrong and he knew it._

_Wrong?_

_It couldn't last. You were going to move on and walk out of his life._

_I guess we both knew this going in._

_So it's as much you as him._

_I know._

_Still hurts like hell._

_Yeah._

_He still hurts too. I don't think that I've ever seen my brother cry before. _

_So it's my fault?_

_I didn't say that._

_I gotta go._

_Daria, I-_

She sighed, shaking her head. After what might have been ten minutes of trying to clear her mind she reached for her laptop, waking it up and opening a new document. She didn't bother to title the entry; it didn't deserve a name yet. It was raw material that she would examine later, to tease out some semblance of structure and purpose. Or perhaps, just delete. For now, it was like a poison that she needed to get out of her head.

_So we took these things out to play _

_when we both knew that we shouldn't._

_They were so beautiful, so right, _

_they illuminated the night from within._

_Pretty things. We couldn't help ourselves._

_How could anyone resist the metaphor?_

_My lover, my first time, from his first touch _

_I found that it was all encoded in my being._

_I knew what to do, how to move, how to feel_

_We made love like we breathe to stay alive._

_Some part of me awoke inside that night_

_Something that I needed to comprehend such joy_

_And now I learned that it makes my sorrow_

_So perfect, what the maudlin call bittersweet._

_Bittersweet. Now I understand the word._

_If we had just fucked_

_It wouldn't have been so bad now._

_But I don't know how to just fuck. _

_I never learned how to do that with him._

_Well._

_It turns out that it's a lot like masturbation._

_But there's a hell of a lot more baggage and drama_

_Thrown into the deal._

_Big sweaty guy working on top of me._

_Dammit, man, I need to breathe._

_My body is satisfied._

_I guess I'm a good lay._

_I know how to enjoy the sensations_

_But I know that there's more to this_

_And it lives where I'm no longer sure_

_How to pick through my shadows to get there._

_I guess that's all some people ever get_

_And they call it getting lucky._

_But I know that there's more_

_And I want it back._

_It's different when a lover looks at you._

_A partner sizes up your tits and your ass._

_He thinks about how he should fuck you._

_Over easy? Medium Rare?_

_They call me a cynic _

_When what I want to do is make love._

_I want the look in the eyes of my lover_

_Who can easily see my soul _

_He sees it clearly through the smoke_

_And haze_

_And heat _

_Of lust._

_ Love makes it sacred._

_ Without it, all that you have is_

_ Fucking._

She closed the file, embedding it into the color model of one of Jane's image scans. Even Jane wouldn't notice the subtle changes, masked as they would be by normal rendering variations from one computer to another.

She shut down the computer and was finally able to get to sleep.


End file.
